Hello, Neighbor!

Those of you that know me pretty well know that I am not totally, completely, entirely sane. In fact, I am probably more on the crazier side. There are many reasons for this - my family of course is one of them. But who among us has not been at least pushed a teensy bit closer to the edge of their sanity by their family? But that is not what I am talking about right now. The reason for my insanity addressed in this blog posting is those irritating little songs I sing all day with my students.

I start my day by chanting the morning greeting with the first graders. You should know that I teach three classes of first grade, so I do the same thing three times in a row. That includes this chant:

"HEL-lo neighbor! (big corny wave and smiling face)
What do you say? (shrug with hands out)
It's gonna be a WON-derful day! (cheesy fist pump as if saying "golly-gee willickers!" circa 1942)
So clap your hands (3 claps)
And boogie down! (bend your knees and wiggle your butt)
Give a little bump! (bump hips with person next to you)
And turn around!" (turn around while waving hands in the air)

It has gotten to the point that I say it sometimes while doing the dishes. Sometimes while driving I say it in a funny voice.Sometimes when someone in the hall says "hello" to me, I have to stop myself from saying "HEL-lo, neighbor!" and doing the big corny wave. Sometimes I don't stop myself in time. The teacher I share a room with and I often catch ourselves chanting it robotically while working in the room together.  The poor woman has her prep in the room for one or two of my first grade classes, so she's heard it enough to drive her crazy, too. The kids still love it, though.

Another song I sing quite frequently to help kids get the ya-yas out and to prove a point that some words sound like other words, is "Tony Chestnut". I have gone to youtube for help on this one, since I know it is a pretty popular song among the educators of younger students.



I chose this woman because she looks slightly ridiculous, but still looks like she is having fun. Also, these her gestures are similar to the ones we do in my class. Of course, we sing a bit faster, don't have background music, and we don't sing that last verse about Russell. Still - imagine me doing this multiple times a day with my kiddos.

I can't do this song with my 4th or 5th graders who are 10 going on 21. Use your imagination for what gestures they might try to replace "Chestnut" with. Are you imagining something terribly inappropriate? Then you are probably right.

"Baby Shark" is a big hit with the third graders, and the first graders sometimes beg to sing it. For this reason, I often use it as some kind of reward. There really isn't much to it, which makes it easy to sing. But it also means I get bored with it if I have already sung it with the 6 classes before.

Here is a group of adult teachers singing the song pretty much the way we sing it in our class:




But more hilariously, here are two guys singing a different version of this song. A bit morbid for the first graders, but I get a kick out of it anyway.




We sing "The More We Get Together" with sign language, Head and Shoulders Baby, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, The Cat Missed the Bus, and 5 in the bed.

We've also been singing this song about families as part of the curriculum. I am not even going to look for it online because it is truly awful.

Ooooh! I found this song! Maybe I will learn this one and teach it to the kiddos! We definitely need more crazy songs in our repetoire! The students need to be moving and silly, while I need to try to hang onto what little is left of my sanity by teaching new songs!




I like this one! Much good has already come from writing this particular post!

And then in an attempt to stop myself from just randomly breaking out into these songs, please enjoy this inappropriate, adult clip from "Drunk History".






Alexander Hamilton sure had a lot of phone calls to make. And I have that same predicament all the time. I can't reconcile killing someone with my political beliefs. But I can't reconcile my political beliefs with NOT killing someone. It is quite the pickle to be in.